Objective: About half of Swedish dentists are publicly employed (PDHS) in 21 politically governed counties; the remainder are PPs. By law the PDHS should cooperate with PPs and with each other .
The PDHS can be organised in various ways, here we investigated the impact on cooperation from the following factors: 1/ a separate political board governing only the PDHS, 2/ a clear-cut purchase provider split organisation (P/P split), and 3/ the absolute size of the PDHS as measured by the size of county.
Materials and Methods: A questionnaire was mailed to the Chief Dental Officer (CDO) in each PDHS.
Results: Answers were received from all 21 counties. Four counties reported cooperation on management and policy levels. Cooperation with other PDHS was reported by 65%; usually in emergency care and in specialist dentistry. Cooperation with PPs was stated by 9 CDOs, most frequently out of hours emergency care and care for children. 1. Answers from PDHSs with a separate political board did not covary with any different patterns of cooperation. 2. Seven PDHS stated that they had a fully developed P/P split and four that there was no division of tasks. A clear P/Psplit showed no difference as regards cooperation with other PDHSs; however, these CDOs reported less cooperation with the PPs (rho- 0,45) 3. No correlations were found between the size of the county and the pattern of cooperation. Conclusions: An organisation with a separate political board or with a clear P/Psplit revealed no difference in cooperation between PDHSs. CDOs within a P/P organisation reported less cooperation with PPs. Perhaps the CDOs did not regard the present activities as cooperation or the cooperation might be on the purchaser’s level not the provider’s. There appears to be potential for development of the cooperation between PDHSs and also for more cooperation with PPs.

Language

eng (iso)

Subject

MedicineResearch Subject Categories::ODONTOLOGY

Note

14th Annual Congress of the European Association of Dental Public Heal... (see Details for more)